Morganatic and Secret Marriages in the French Royal Family

Morganatic marriages are marriages in a royal or sovereign family which
somehow contravene the dynastic rules, either because they were not authorized,
or more often because of a perceived mésalliance or inequality
in rank between the spouses. The issue of the morganatic marriage is barred
from succeding to the throne (sometimes the perpetrator as well), and the
spouses are denied the rank they would have normally held as royal spouses.
Morganatic marriage is a concept of German law, and did not openly exist
in French law. Hence, there are, strictly speaking, no morganatic marriages
in the French royal family.

What one does find in the French royal family are secret marriages, which
may in fact have been the exact equivalents, in law, of morganatic marriages.
There are four examples of secret marriages:

The marriage of Louis XIV with Françoise d'Aubigné, marquise
de Maintenon (1635-1719), sometime between August 1683 and June 1684 according
to most authors;

The marriage of his only son Louis, Dauphin de France, with Marie-Émilie
de Joly de Chouin (1663-1732), sometime in 1695;

The marriage of Louis-Philippe d'Orleans (1725-85), grandson of the regent
and grandfather of the King of the French, on Apr 23 1773 with Charlotte-Jeanne
Berault de La Haye de Riou (1738-1806), widow of the marquis de Montesson
(interestingly, they were married under the regime of separate assets,
by contract of 18 Apr 1773 and act of 23 Apr 1773;
usually princes were married under the regime of common assets, communauté
des biens; see Levanthal, p. 832-3).

The marriage of Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orléans, duchesse de Montpensier
(1627-93) and first cousin of Louis XIV, in 1670 with Antoine-Nompar de
Caumont (1632-1723), later duc de Lauzun, sometime around 1682.

It could be argued that these secret marriages were the French equivalent
of morganatic marriages; since the marriage was secret, the spouse was
never given the rank that she would have had under normal circumstances,
which is a common trait with morganatic marriages. However, these four
marriages (which are the only known examples) share other characteristics:

they took place secretly and were kept a secret, or rather an "open secret",
in that everybody knew that it had happened, although no one said so publicly
and no one knew exactly when;

they were made with the consent of the sovereign;

the three royal males were widowers, and already had at least one son
in his teens, i.e., beyond the reach of childhood mortality (the case of
the duchesse de Montpensier was less crucial, because of the Salic law);

no children were born to the secret marriages (note that in the case
of the Dauphin and the duc d'Orléans the spouses were still
of child-bearing age.).

Thus, they are very difficult to compare with morganatic marriages,
because the other trait of the latter is that the issue is barred from
succession. The morganatic marriage is authorized or suffered on that condition.
It seems that the French secret marriages were authorized on another condition:
that the prince fulfill his dynastic duties by leaving a legitimate issue,
and not leave any issue by the secret marriage. In other words, the main
function of the concept of morganatic marriage is to devise a category
between legitimate issue and illegitimate issue: that of legitimate but
ineligible issue.

An interesting feature of Old Regime private law does, in fact, turn
secret marriages into the equivalent of morganatic marriages. This is the
result of an ordonnance of 1639, whose article 3 states: ""Déclarons
que les enfans qui naîtront de ces mariages que les parties ont tenus
ou tiendront cachés durant leur vie, qui ressentent plutôt
la honte d'un concubinage, que la diginité d'un mariage, soient
incapables de toutes succession, aussi bien que leur postérité"
(the children to be born of those marriages whose participants held or
shall hold secret during their lifetime, who feel rather the shame of concubinage
than the dignity of marriage, shall be incapable of any inheritance, as
well as their issue). The jurist Pothier (Traité des successions,
Chapitre I, section I, article 3, § 4) adds that, although such marriages
were performed according to the requirements of the law (in particular,
they are canonically valid), they are not legitimate for the purposes of
inheritance. Among proofs that a marriage is held secret, he mentions the
fact that the wife does not take the name of her husband.

On the other hand, accepting that the provisions of the ordonnance
of 1639 extend to the succession to the throne is allowing the king to
alter the line of succession (albeit with the consent of the Parlement,
whose registration was required for the enforcement of an ordonnance).

It was asserted in Old Regime France that the sovereign's assent to
marriages in the royal family (as in Great Britain with the Royal
Marriages Act of 1772) was required. This assertion was made
in the context of a specific marriage that ran afoul of the king.
(What follows is based on Pierre Blet:
Le Clergé de France et la Monarchie, Etude sur les Assemblées
Générales du Clergé de 1615 à 1666.
Rome, 1959: Université Grégorienne. pp. 399-439.
See also Degert, "Le mariage de Gaston d'Orléans et
de Marguerite de Lorraine," Revue Historique 143:161-80, 144:1-57.)

Gaston de France, duc d'Orléans (1608-60)
was the only brother of the childless king
Louis XIII and his heir presumptive. He spent a good deal
of his life plotting against his brother and in particular his
brother's prime minister, the cardinal de Richelieu. He once
took refuge after a failed plot in Lorraine, and fell in love with
Marguerite (1615-72), younger sister of the duke Charles III de Lorraine.
On his return to France
he was forbidden by the king to marry Marguerite, who belonged
to a family that was a longtime enemy of France. But Gaston
fled again to Lorraine and married her on 3 January 1632, in
a secret ceremony, in the chapel of a convent in Nancy, with
a monk delegated by the bishop of Toul officiating and a
handful of family members as witnesses.

The secret was well kept, until one of Gaston's co-conspirators,
the duc de Montmorency, spilled the beans before ascending the
scaffold in November 1632. The king resolved to have the
marriage invalidated one way or the other. The first tack was
to have the ambassador of France in Rome ask for the appointment
of a judicial panel of four French bishops to adjudicate the matter.
The Pope was forewarned that, should he refuse, the French court
would find other means. In any case, he was told that the matter
could not be settled in Rome, where the Spanish influence was
deemed too hostile to French interests. The ambassador's request
on 3 Feb 1634 was denied: the Pope asserted that only the bishop
of the diocese or himself could decide the issue.

At the same time, a procedure had begun in civil courts. On 4 Jan 1634
an inquiry was launched at the king's request in the Parlement de Paris
into the "rape" (rapt, forced marriage) of the duc d'Orléans.
As heir to the crown, he must be held to be a minor under the tutelage
of the king, and the marriage having taken place without the king's
consent was technically a forced marriage, hence invalid. The Parlement
concluded on 5 Sept 1634 that "le prétendu mariage de Monsieur le
duc d'Orléans et frère unique du Roi avec la princesse Marguerite de
Lorraine a été non valablement contracté, et pour l'attentat et rapt
commis par ledit Charles, duc de Lorraine, … ledit Charles, duc,
vassal lige de la Couronne, être déclaré criminel de lèse-majesté."

The Pope protested what he saw as an invasion of ecclesiastical
jurisdiction (although cases of forced marriages were traditionally
within the purview of civil courts). He sent briefs to Richelieu and
to the king asking for the annullment of the arrêt of the Parlement,
without deciding the question of the validity of the marriage.
Meanwhile, Gaston had confirmed his vows in Brussels in front
of the archbishop of Malines and obtained the support of the
theologians of the University of Louvain.

In 1635, the General Assembly of the Clergy of France was due
to meet. These assemblies, begun in 1579, were held every ten
years. The clerics of each ecclesiastical province of France elected
four deputies; the deputies met in Paris and discussed the affairs
of the French church, and also negotiated financial support for
the king. The assembly began its proceedings on 25 May, and
on June 16 it received to emissaries of the king who asked the
assembly to consider the following question:
"Si les mariages des Princes du sang qui peuvent prétendre à la
Couronne et particulièrement de ceux qui en sont les plus proches
et présomptifs héritiers. peuvent être valables et légitimes
s'ils sont faits non seulement sans le consentement de celui qui
possède la Couronne, mais en outre contre sa volonté et sa
défense."

The assembly appointed a commission fo five bishops, headed
by Pierre Fenouillet, bishop of Montpellier, to examine the matter.
They sollicited the opinions of theologians at the Sorbonne and
in the various religious houses of Paris, and gathered nearly
sixty signed opinions, all concluding that the marriage was invalid
(those whose opinions were contrary were not sollicited). Specialists
in ethics and law had opined, as well as priors and superiors of
various orders.

Fenouillet read his report on July 6. His speech was based on two
arguments. One was that sacraments of the Church were all made
of matter, such as water for baptism, bread and wine for the Eucharist,
and form, the ritual words of the ceremonies; both being necessary
for the validity of the sacrament. In the case of marriage, the matter
was the civil contract embodying the consent of the parties: "the matter
is not only physical entity, but also a political entity,and more capable
of alteration than the physical entity, due to any number of circumstances
whose effects change the matter prepared for the sacrament of marriage,
that is, the mutual consent of the parties in Jesus Christ, and alter it
to such a degree that it is incapable of receibing the form of sacrament."
The ability to regulate marriages as a political entity was inherent in
their authority, a right they had not and could not relinquish to the
Church.

Fenouillet's other argument was that "custom is as good as law", a
principle formulated even in the decrees of Alexander III and Innocent
III: "qui legitimus est ad matrimonium contrahendum per consuetudinem
fit illegitimus," by custom he who could otherwise enter into matrimony
is made incapable. In the case of France, a long-standing custom, he
argued, regulated the marriages of the princes of the blood. The examples
given were those of Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, forcibly married
by Baudoin of Flanders (the marriage was annulled, but as the spouses
desired to stay together a second marriage was celebrated with the assent
of the king); likewise Louis the Stammerer, son of the same Charles,
married Ansegard without his father's consent and the marriage was
annulled. Finally, Anne de Bretagne had married Maximilian of Austria,
and Charles VIII had the marriage broken.

Fenouillet was sent to Rome to explain it to the Pope. In an audience
on 21 Jan 1636, he emphasized that this was not a judgment, but an
opinion.He justified the alleged custom as "an extension of the salic
law on the basis of a common necessity", namely, excluding foreigners
from the throne; but the Clergy had merely answered the question asked
of it according to its conscience. The Pope accepted this gesture of
submission; he main worry was that the Assembly pass any kind of
decree or legislation, or worse, that a national Council be called. He
was also worried that Gaston remarry, which would have forced an
explicit resolution of the issue. Richelieu told the papal nuncio that,
after the Assembly's opinion, Gaston might indeed marry again, but
that there were no plans to do so. In the end, the Pope never publicly
took position on the Assembly's opinion.

The two brothers
were nevertheless reconciled on Louis XIII's death-bead; royal assent to
the marriage was granted on 5 May 1643, and a marriage ceremony was performed
by the archbishop of Paris in the castle of Meudon on 26 May 1643; subsequently
a marriage contract was signed on 10 Dec 1643 (see Levanthal, p. 826-7).
The children by that marriage were all born after the remarriage of 1643. They
were considered legitimate and of royal rank.
Marguerite-Louise (1645-1721) married Cosimo
III di Medici, Elisabeth (1646-96)
married Louis-Joseph de Lorraine, duc de Guise,
and Françoise-Madeleine (1648-64) married Carlo Emanuele II di Savoia.
The others were Gaston-Louis (1650-52) and Marie-Anne (1652-56).

The impact of the episode on French jurisprudence by the late 18th century
is summarized By Pothier in his Traité du Mariage, partie IV,
chapitre I, article II (Oeuvres, 18234, vol. 5, pp. 184-5):

The Gaston episode was an important one in the evolution of the legal
status of the marriage contract. Under Roman law, marriage was treated
as a contract whose validity was based on mutual consent. In the High
Middle Ages the civil authorities let the Church define the conditions
of validity of marriages. With the Reform and the Council of Trent,
even in Catholic countries a move toward reasserting civil authority
in the law of marriage began. The legal and theological argument
that was used was precisely the one evoked at the French Assembly
of the clergy: that the civil contract was the matter for which
the sacrament was the form, and that the civil authorities had the
power to define which contracts were valid and which were void.
This was reinforced by the
Council of Trent's requirement that
a Catholic priest be present for the marriage to be valid, a
provision which, if endorsed by the civil authorities, made all
Protestant marriages void. In fact, in France a marriage by
mutual consent before a notary remained a valid form of marriage
into the 17th century as long as a priest was present, however
passive or even opposed to the proceedings he might be
(such marriages were called mariages à la
Gaumine, from Gaumin, a judge of the Parlement de Paris who
was so married; they remained possible until 1698 when an
arrêt made the priest's active participation a requisite).

While Louis XIII's moves in 1634 were to have the marriage of
his brother voided, in other matters (secret marriages, marriages
without parental consent and marriages in extremis) the Blois
ordinance of 1579 did not pronounce them void, but deprived
them of all civil effects. This was a way to respect canon law,
but to place the legal question of marriage firmly within the
jurisdiction of the king. However, with the last quarter
of the 18th century, marriage was secularized in many Catholic
countries. In Austria, Joseph II made marriage a purely civil
affair by allowing bishops to grant dispensations without
recourse to Rome, and by making royal courts the sole competent
courts for marriage related suits (edicts of 1781, 1783, 1784
in the Low Countries). The same reforms were carried out in
Tuscany by Leopold II in 1786, with the help of a synod in
Pistoia. In France, the 1787 edict of toleration allowed
a marriage to be contracted either before a Catholic priest
or a royal judge, and reserved jurisdiction over litigation
and dispensations to the civil courts exclusively. The French
Revolution, in 1791, made marriage a purely civil contract
and deprived the priest of any ability to perform a marriage.

The First and Second Empires (1804-14 and 1852-70) specifically stated
in their constitutions that any marriage in the imperial family required
prior approval of the Emperor; should an unauthorized marriage take place,
the offender and his issue were excluded from the succession. (The decree
of March 30, 1806 stated that the marriages of princes of the Imperial
family were void without the explicit consent of the Emperor, and the issue
of such marriages were illegitimate.) However, if the marriage came to
be dissolved without issue, the prince regained his succession rights.
Thus was the concept of morganatic marriage introduced in France. The Constitution
of 1804 allowed Napoleon to adopt an heir among the children of his
brothers, and otherwise provided for succession to Joseph and his descendance,
and then to Louis and his descendance; later, in 1806, Jérôme
was made a French prince and included in the line of succession.

The
Constitution of
1852 and other constitutional texts included similar clauses. The sénatus-consulte
of Nov. 7, 1852 stated that the imperial dignity was restored and was hereditary
in the direct and legitimate descent of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte,
by males and by primogeniture, in perpetual exclusion of females and their
issue. If he has no male child, Louis-Napoléon could adopt male
children in the legitimate male descent of Napoleon I's brothers. Adoption
was forbidden to his successors. Then, a décret organique of Dec
18, 1852 placed in line of succession after Napoleon III and his descent
Jérôme Napoléon and his direct and natural legitimate
issue by Catherine of Württemberg. Finally, a decree of June 21, 1853
defined the imperial family to be the legitimate and adoptive descent of
Napoléon III and all princes eligible to succeed with their spouses
and issue. Marriages contracted without imperial consent were null and
void, and the issue of such marriages was illegitimate. The requirement
of prior consent was, moreover, applicable to the whole descent in male
line of Napoléon I's brothers, and to other parents by blood and
marriage to the 4th degree of kinship ("autres parents et alliés
de l'empereur au quatrième degré").

Napoleon I had not approved of the marriage of his brother Lucien to
Alexandrine Jacob de Bleschamp in 1803. As a result (and for other reasons
as well) Lucien was never made a French prince and his issue was excluded
from succession, although his eldest son Charles-Lucien was made a French
prince in 1815 and married a daughter of Joseph in 1822. Napoleon also
disapproved of the marriage of his brother Jérôme to Elisabeth
Patterson
in 1803, and refused to recognize it. A decree of 11 ventôse
XIII pronounced the marriage null. Jérôme had to relent and
admit the nullity of that marriage in 1805 (in spite of having had a son
by that marriage) before being made a French prince in 1806. Under Napoleon
III the issue of that first marriage was recognized as legitimate and entitled
to the name of Bonaparte in France, but it was forever excluded from the
succession. Jérôme's third marriage to Justine Pecori-Giraldi
was secret, and left no issue. Under Napoleon III, some marriages failed
to meet approval of the Emperor, e.g., that of Pierre Bonaparte (son of
Lucien) in 1867.

Among the Orléans family, marriages are subject to the approval
of the head of the house (the Orléans-Bragance
and Orléans-Galliera are separate houses).
But only in recent years have there been
acts of disobedience of members in matters of marriage. The then-comte de
Clermont divorced his wife in 1984 and married a divorcee the same
year, his first religious marriage not having been anulled: his father,
strongly disapproving, removed his son from the line
of succession, but relented in 1991, and granted a title to his son's
second civil wife. Two other sons married against the
will of their father: Michel in 1967 and Thibaut in 1972, and as a consequence
were excluded from the succession along with their issue, although the comte
de Paris did give them titles in 1976 (comte d'Évreux and comte
de La Marche respectively). They have been restored in their dynastic rights
by the new comte de Paris in 1999. Also, the remarriage of the comte de Paris'
sister Isabelle to Pierre prince Murat was not approved and she lost her
style as Royal Highness as a result.